


525

by gumbal1



Category: Original Work
Genre: Apartment Horror, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Heavy Angst, Other, Psychological Horror, Supernatural Elements, Trans Female Character, with apologies to stephen king
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 21:11:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13749330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gumbal1/pseuds/gumbal1
Summary: Cleaning up a previous tenant's mess sucks, especially when you have your own mess to deal with. Some messes suck worse than others.Marcelyn is a 28-year-old photographer who fled her hometown, leaving her old, miserable life behind her. Anywhere that would take her would be enough, she assumed. Even some dingy, old, slightly creepy apartment complex in Brooklyn, tinged with the remnants of something she couldn't quite understand.





	525

**Author's Note:**

> For Alice, Arcana, Ellie, Jinx, and Zachary, you beautiful motherfuckers. Some of the names you provided made it into the story. In addition, fuck you, Christian, End, and June.  
> I can’t promise it takes place in the same world you live in. A better world, perhaps. Maybe one just as bad, in a different way. All I can say is that the views of the characters within do not necessarily reflect the views of the author.  
> This story and its characters are fiction. They can’t physically harm you, unless someone were to bash the medium of presentation this was published upon against your face repeatedly.  
> Never live alone.  
>  _“That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key.”_  
>  **― Elizabeth Wurtzel**  
>  _“The masses of flies over the dirt do not state their unity; it is the dirt that brings them together.”_  
>  **― M.F. Moonzajer**

The portly, redheaded landlady held the door open. “And here we are, miss…”

“Maddox.” Marcelyn stepped inside, off the mahogany-colored linoleum flooring of the hallway, and into the soft, off-white carpeting of Apartment 525 of Ciderwood Apartments.

She should have felt trepidation, yet all she felt was an odd cold.

Marcelyn, once more, checked her bank balance on her phone, just to make sure her savings were still safe. All clear. She wondered if Jason even knew she was gone yet.

She wondered if her friends back home would miss her.

“Anyways, I’m thinking you’d be making the right choice, here.” From the door, Marcelyn could go left directly into the dingy little kitchenette where she’d be cooking most of her meals, when she had the energy, or straight into the living room (pre-furnished, of course. Her escape fund didn’t cover a trip to Ikea). The landlady chose the former, stepping onto the checkerboard tiled floor, stopping to lean against the counter. “Kitchen’s state of the art, long as you aren’t some kinda gourmet chef...that’s come up before.” 

Marcelyn merely nodded.

“Anyways,” continued the landlady, who Marcelyn realized she hadn’t gotten the name of yet. “you get a dishwasher, fridge, stovetop, oven. Microwaves, toasters, utensils, plates those aren’t included.” Marcelyn found herself looking inside the fridge. It was empty. “Whaddya think?”

Looking to the landlady, Marcelyn realized she had probably been staring at the fridge for far too long, closing it with a nervous giggle. “Sorry. And well...yeah! I really, really like it.” It was okay.

“Glad you think so. Really.” Marcelyn stepped out of the way as the landlady made her way to the living room. It was a simple affair, a plush sofa and armchair, along with a slightly rusted metal coffee table and a wooden stand that might’ve once served to hold up a tv. Now it just sat there, enveloped by what might have been a sunbeam in nicer weather, slinking in from one of the three windows at the opposite end of the room. A door sat at the far end of the room, on the right wall. It was a nice door. “Not much to say here. You can decorate it however you want. Last tenant had a few pictures, a television,” The landlady punctuated the statement with a soft knock of the stand. “a couple bookshelves, and a lamp. You, you said you were a...what again?”

Marcelyn had taken a seat on the sofa during her monologue, nodding along, and blinked as she realized the lady had just asked her something. “Oh! I’m a, well, uh, photographer. For Santos-no, sorry, for uh, NY Explore.” Technically, she’d be starting at NYE tomorrow...did she remember to submit her resignation form?

“You could hang a few photos, if you wanted. Me, I’d get flowers, a cactus or two. Helps with the air.” Landlady, as Marcelyn found herself used to calling her, knocked on the windows, before opening the nice little door to what was probably the bedroom and heading in.

Marcelyn moved to follow, before her gaze was briefly taken by one of those landline corded phones she was sure she hadn’t seen since she was about fourteen and definitely hadn’t originally noticed upon coming in, hanging on the wall near the kitchenette.

...it wasn’t important. Marcelyn followed Landlady in.

The bedroom was spartan, with but a writing desk, a chair that looked like it couldn’t decide between being a rocking chair and one of those plastic blue ones they had in high school cafeterias, a dresser, and a twin bed, thin blankets neatly tucked in. A sliding door, stark white and wooden, sat at the wall opposite of the entrance, along with a door on the right wall that probably led to a bathroom. Landlady was standing near the aforementioned sliding doors as Marcelyn entered. In contrast to the living room, a portrait of three people that Marcelyn didn’t really pay much attention to hung over the bed. “Here’s the bedroom. As I said, you can decorate it however you want. The closet’s in here,“ Landlady opened the sliding door. “And-”

Landlady was interrupted with a shriek from Marcelyn as the three foot tall, off-white sack doll that had (presumably) been leaning against the door suddenly fell into the bedroom proper with a soft plop, along with the sound of Marcelyn backing straight into the warty plaster wall.

It took a few seconds before Marcelyn, blinking, could regain the composure to actually speak. “...sorry.”

Looking at the sack doll now, it didn’t seem that scary. Sure, it was a stark contrast to the impersonality of the otherwise empty apartment, and she was pretty sure she could get a faint whiff of mildew off the poor thing, but, turning it over, the weird x-eyes and tiny frown were almost...adorable, in some twisted, macabre way.

“...right, well. I’d thought our previous tenant had been cleaned out, but…” Landlady gulped, then shook her head. “Nevermind.” Kicking the doll back into the closet, Landlady shut the sliding door. “...anyways, bathroom’s your standard toilet, sink, medicine cabinet, bathtub slash shower, connected right to the bedroom for ease.” She punctuated this, once more, with a knock on the door. Maybe she believed in fairies?

“Oh, uh...yeah, that sounds good. Don’t have to walk far if I wake up in the middle of the night to, uh, go.” She should ask Landlady to see the inside, to check for anything. “So, uh, how much is this?” She knew, of course. Research had been key to her-

“The rent’s twelve hundred a month,” Wait what. “start of each month, with a deposit of...fifteen hundred.” Huh?

She must’ve spaced out, because the next thing she heard was “Miss Maddox? Are you alright?”

Blinking, Marcelyn shook her head, blinked a few more times, then nodded. “Yeah, sorry, it’s…” Getting her phone out to check her savings balance once more, everything was clear. Still, it was nice to be sure she hadn’t forgotten something. “I, uh, thought rent was...higher.” As it was on the site, just...how long ago did she check it, again? Did they have some sort of promotion she didn’t know about?

Landlady interrupted her ruminations on her lack of research. “Well, we-” In turn, she was interrupted by a gulp of saliva at the wrong moment and a cough. “-sorry, allergies. We’re not really the fancy sort. Out here isn’t Manhattan, and, well.” Perhaps she feared Marcelyn would walk out once more, because she found herself knocking once again on the wooden door to the bathroom. “This place ain’t exactly fancy, as I said.”

That was fine, Marcelyn thought. She just needed a place to live.

“Well, anyways. You can come by whenever, check out the place. I’ll be here.” She should check the bathroom. Probably the closet for anything else weird. The kitchen, too, for rats, as loathe as she felt to presume Landlady would deliberately sell her a shoddy apartment.

“I’ll take it.”

Something cold washed over her.

Landlady didn’t seem to expect that; indeed, she almost looked...well, Marcelyn thought she’d have been gladder.

...did she do something?

“Uh, sorry.” Marcelyn said, scratching the back of her neck. “I, well, okay so the price is, like, really good? And...I just kinda, need an affordable place. Yeah.” She topped it off with what was probably an incredibly doofy smile.

“No, no, it’s…” Landlady shook her head. “I’ll get the paperwork. You just...stay there, alright?”

Landlady left, and Marcelyn Maddox, age 28, found herself alone in the apartment she had just impulse bought.

The cold seemed to grow.

Marcelyn thought to herself that she should check the bathroom. Instead, she dropped her bag to the floor and flopped down, back first, onto the...surprisingly soft mattress. Well, at least for one that didn’t have sheets, yet. She’s have to fetch those from her car. She wondered if they had a washer in the apartment. She wondered how much they cost to use.

Her flop having landed her lopsided, she eventually found herself slipping down onto the carpeted floor with a soft thud. Part of her shuddered, wondering if the person below her was just disturbed by the sudden noise. Marcelyn muttered a sorry the tenant probably didn’t hear.

Her next stop should have been the bathroom. Marcelyn, instead, chose to reinvestigate the sad little sack doll in the closet. Opening the closet door was a bit awkward, Marcelyn never really having dealt with a door that was essentially a sliding block of wood hanging from a groove from the top of the doorframe. The popout of the doll somewhat startled Marcelyn, even if she did see it coming, though, then again, none of the other properties she looked at (read: a single apartment Leah had suggested) came with weird little sad-sacks like this.

Come to think of it, ‘Sadsack’ was a nice name for it. Maybe Marcelyn would keep it.

If so, it didn’t look like she had a lot of washing to do, besides dusting the thing. Off-white looked to be its original color from the general lack of unnatural gradients in the fabric. The x-eyes and tiny frown were somewhat crudely sewn in later using a bit of a fuzzier black felt. Maybe the last tenant had kids?

...who’d get this for a kid?

Inevitably, Marcelyn found her gaze drawn to the painting on the wall. Before, it had appeared merely the result of a quirky thrift store trip, bereft of any real meaning besides spontaneity. Looking now, it was actually...rather detailed, in its own little, weird way. In any case, at least to Marcelyn, it seemed as if the previous tenant either had some hand in the painting (which, having no real apparent name of its own, Marcelyn christened Three at rest), or was an enthusiast in the morbid side of art.

The painting, easily one Marcelyn could imagine seeing in a museum, reminded her, somewhat, of the style of that one painter she learned about in college. Caravaggio, was it? The foreground consisted of but a rather decorated table, two chairs, and its three human inhabitants, while the background consisted of little else but darkness. There was a painting technique referring to that, but Marcelyn would be damned if she could remember what it was called.

The most striking feature had to be its inhabitants, each rendered in a distinct, if somewhat perplexing style.

The one that drew Marcelyn’s attention first, likely in tandem with the fact that it was easily the most striking of the figures, was one that sat in the middle. A...policeman, from the looks of it, rendered rather haphazardly or at least measuredly clashing in the assembled pieces of what looked to be torn up post cards, the printed images forming the general figure with surprising clarity for the composition. Indeed, it almost reminded Marcelyn of a more refined Dada piece, meant to evoke the style while still portraying a coherent idea.

Even through the torn paper, Marcelyn felt she had a feel of what the artist intended for the man. It struck her that the man was supposed to be beautiful, even if the style detracted from his potential to be so. Troubled, too, although the postcards chosen to represent his face made that quite obvious. Marcelyn got the feeling she wouldn’t want to meet the inspiration.

The next figure that caught Marcelyn’s attention stood at the left. A shirtless blonde man, leaning against the frame, painted in a way almost reminiscent of that one painting of Saturn eating his kids, the one that Jason had bought as a joke before…

...she didn’t want to look at him any longer. Something felt really off about him.

The last figure stood at the right of the frame, a tall, rather brawny, imposing woman in a (grease?)stained apron...tall was putting it lightly, come to think of it. Given the scale of the painting, the man at the other end’s proportions already suggested a rather generous height, yet even he looked a head and shoulders lower than the woman. Even so, rendered in a style much like Munch’s scream, with exaggerated, pained features, the woman was clearly ill at ease…

...Marcelyn would need to remove the painting. She didn’t like looking at it.

...maybe later. The prospect of touching it, for whatever reason, was equally revolting.

Marcelyn looked down, to realize that she was still holding Sadsack. She gently placed him back in the closet, shutting the door, before, perhaps by the reemergence of that childhood idea of a doll’s personhood, she decided he needed some light, and opened the door just a tiny bit to let that happen.

She should’ve checked the bathroom next, and finally, that’s what she did.

The door opened without much trouble, thankfully enough.

Stepping in, the off-white carpet (thankfully) terminated into off-white tile. In truth, there wasn’t all that much to write home about. There was really only a toilet, a somewhat cracked-looking shower-tub embedded into the floor, and a sink, wedged into a bathroom drawer, overlooked by a mirror. The whole thing was lit by three bare bulbs, jutting out from the space of wall just above the mirror. The bulbs cast the bathroom in a sickly, orangish-yellow light, though Marcelyn assumed she could fix that easily.

She realized she was thirsty.

Looking around the bathroom for someone to ask permission to drink from the faucet (out of convenience, of course) reminded her that nobody was around to ask, yet. Oh well.

Marcelyn bent over the sink, brushing the frizzy strands of black hair that fell over her face, to drink from the faucet.

Her hair was slightly wet when she looked up at herself. Her makeup had thankfully not smudged, but then again, she didn't really know if it changed much, anyways. She wasn’t particularly nice to look at, even after the FFS that-

The light bulbs above the mirror flickered, before burning out, leaving Marcelyn in abject darkness.

Sounds alerted Marcelyn to her own heavy breathing, as the feeling of warty plaster against her back alerted her to the fact that the sudden change in lighting had caused her to fall back against the wall. Shuddering only seemed to exasperate both, and yet, given the circumstances, Marcelyn found she couldn’t help herself. The cold from earlier only seemed to grow.

Light. She needed light.

Her hands groped through the darkness, looking for just that, or, at the very least, a reprieve from the dark. Marcelyn’s efforts only seemed to earn her a sudden stab of pain as she knocked the root of her palm into one of the sink’s sharp wooden corners, falling to her knees with a loud thud.

She hadn’t noticed how silent the bathroom had been, up until them. Kneeling on the ground, a stinging in her left hand, the noise of her stumbling had ceased, leaving Marcelyn’s breathing alone in the dark, rocking back and forth on her knees like a useless child.

Maybe she should have never left.

...the sound of thudding resumed, slow and steady, and yet Marcelyn hadn’t moved an inch.

Even as she hurriedly stood up, continuing her desperate search for the door, the steady thuds overtook the ones renewed by her hurried groping. Skin scraped against plaster, searching for the telltale wood of the door, creating a sound Marcelyn was sure the neighbors must have heard, and yet all overtaken by the steady thumping. Twice now she must have touched a corner, surely-

Marcelyn’s nails nearly scratched the wood of the door by the time she, after what must’ve been minutes, finally found the door, and set about to open it.

The knob didn’t turn, and the room seemed to grow colder.

Marcelyn set the lock and tried once more, only to find the knob failing to turn once more.

The back of her neck felt wet.

A whimper almost escaped her, as the thudding grew louder and louder, as her clumsy hands fumbled with the lock, panicked, just as Jason warned her, she was helpless, what was she thinking, she needed-

“Ms. Maddox, you still in there?”

Marcelyn tumbled back into the bedroom, with a bit less dignity than she intended. The bedroom door lightly shook with the sound of Landlady’s knocking. Her hair flipped over to cover her face, slapping her with a few wet strands (likely from the sink).

Marcelyn blinked before answering. “Coming, sorry!”

Landlady was at the door with a furrowed brow and pursed lips as Marcelyn answered, arms crossed over her chest, a perfectly understandable reaction given what she probably just heard. “Was something wrong? I could hear you from the kitchen.”  
Marcelyn’s cheeks suddenly felt warm. “Oh, uh...no, nothing! It’s just...sorry, there was trouble with the bathroom,” Words that prompted Landlady to look over her shoulder, over to the darkened bathroom. “and I was just, well, looking around for lightbulbs, and…”

With a gulp (she did that a lot), Landlady shrugged her shoulders. “Unlucky. Well, I have the papers you requested, right here.” Several files weres subsequently handed to Marcelyn, along with a ballpoint pen that looked like a dog might’ve gotten to it. “You can fill it out now, if you’ve got the deposit.”

Marcelyn replied with a nod, a smile, and a turn away to fill out the forms against the writing desk. “Er, do you take checks?” There wasn’t that much to fill out.

Previous residence, 765 Creed Lane, Diane, Florida, 32136. She wondered what Jason would do to her old bathroom.

Marcelyn had just noticed that she scraped her wrist. “...we do. Miss, is something the matter?” She stayed silent as she checked it for any blood (she didn’t want to dirty an apartment she didn’t own, after all) before moving on to the rest of the paper. 

Telephone, well, that was...what if Jason had her phone bills? What if he could find her from there, what if-

“Miss Maddox? Is something wrong?”

Legal name. “No.” She looked over her shoulder before signing.

Marcelyn Marie Maddox.

It almost felt wrong, but...no, it wasn’t a lie. That was legally her name, she had changed it to that. She remembered. She remembered.

“Done, uh, let me grab my...” Marcelyn, signed papers in hand, suddenly realized she didn’t know where her bag was. Did she leave it in the car? Oh dear, that had her-

Marcelyn tripped over her own bag and nearly faceplanted, once more making a noise the neighbors could probably hear. Landlady visibly cringed, before Marcelyn uttered an apology in a jumble not even she could decipher (under her own breath, of course) and sheepishly brought out her checkbook.

Her mother always said the first item bought with a checkbook was lucky. Jason had handled all the purchases, though, so she never really had the chance to find out. Indeed, signing away this much money almost felt painful, if it wasn’t far less than she anticipated.

Marcelyn’s signature was sloppy from the cold, something she noticed as she handed the check, tentatively, to her new landlady.

Landlady smiled at her with what must have been pity. “I’ll fetch the keys for you. Enjoy your apartment, Miss Maddox.”

And once more, Landlady left Marcelyn alone in her new apartment.

...having nothing more to do until she got back, Marcelyn saw fit to lay on the couch so generously provided by the apartment. In contrast to the air around it, the couch almost felt warm. The plush, while probably not top shelf BB&B material, was easily-  
Someone knocked on the door, forcing Marcelyn to get up and answer it. Hopefully it’d be her keys.

It was not her keys.

Instead, it was a woman, less portly and somewhat shorter (at what Marcelyn guessed was about 5’3”) than the woman Marcelyn had expected, and likely a fair bit younger, probably around Marcelyn’s age. Her skin was pale, expected for a New Yorker, and significantly less wrinkled than one might expect from such baggy eyes. Speaking of eyes, the mystery girl’s, earthy brown and heavily lidded, threatened at any second to suddenly close, taking the girl’s wakefulness with her. Her clothes, blue nurse’s scrubs from the looks of it, seemed to indicate she had just come from a shift at the hospital, while her messy black hair and nearly dazed expression seemed to indicate the same hypothetical hospital’s morgue as her origin.

Marcelyn waited for the woman to speak, only to be met with an uncomfortable, almost judgemental stare, followed by a nearly as uncomfortable, definitely judgemental opening line: “Some of us are trying to sleep, you know.”

Oh. Oh. Marcelyn’s eyes found the floor. “...sorry.”

The woman furrowed her brow. “I appreciate the gesture,” The woman’s tone was stern, a trait only made worse by the inexplicable English accent, and her words spoken in a stern monotone that probably wasn’t usually monotone. “though I’d appreciate actions better. Cleaning can’t be that hard, can it?”

Marcelyn looked up, briefly making a surprisingly tense bout of eye contact before downcasting her eyes once more. Given everything, she probably should have introduced herself as this woman’s new neighbor, and yet all that came out was another “sorry.”

The mystery woman didn’t immediately respond, sucking in her lips briefly before side eyeing. “Stop apologizing, please.”

Marcelyn’s immediate response was another “sorry”, something she immediately recognized as inappropriate. Eye contact suddenly felt just a bit harder than before.

“You’re making this very hard for me, you know.” Mystery woman continued, tone almost mirthful, if tinged with disappointment. “You know, I could always talk with Mrs. Co-”

“Mrs. Kawajiri.” Marcelyn and her companion turned in tandem to see Landlady coming down the hall. Marcelyn almost felt relieved. “I see you’ve met your new neighbor.”

Mrs. Kawajiri sucked in her lips before responding, first with a smile that, while technically reaching her eyes, didn’t quite match the intricacies of her previous expression. “Oh, yes indeed. I just happened to hear someone moving in and I thought that I may as well get a head start on Ripley.”

“You’re one of the better neighbors here.” Landlady, not even looking at Marcelyn, handed her a ring of keys, which included a shiny, somewhat jagged steel one that almost reminded Marcelyn of a set of teeth, a smaller copper one that seemed too small for a door, and a plastic nub she assumed was for the gates. “Most people, they aren’t keen on being good neighbors. We need more good neighbors.”

Mrs. Kawajiri giggled in such a manner that, had she been put behind an opaque screen, Marcelyn would have never attributed to the irritable graveyard shift nurse she had met just moments ago. “You flatter me. I’m doing what anyone would do. I mean, people are interesting, don’t you think?”

“Well.” Landlady nodded, and Marcelyn realized she still didn’t know her name. “I’ll leave you two to your introductions.”

And thus, Mrs. Kawajiri was left with Mrs…

...no, Ms. Maddox.

“...anyways, I’d like to apologize.” Mrs. Kawajiri’s current smile was a fair bit more sedate than the one she used to greet Landlady. “The staff recently put me on graveyard shift, and I’ve had a bit of trouble adapting. That, and my coffee won’t finish brewing for another few hours.” Her giggle was a bit more sedate, as well. “I’m Isabella. Pleased to meet my new neighbor.”

The sudden change didn’t put her at complete ease, but it was better than unaplogetic grumpiness. Isabella extended a rather small, dainty-looking hand, which Marcelyn tentatively took into her own.

...she hadn’t noticed, but the earlier cold seemed to have disappeared. She only realized this because Isabella’s hand was a distressing return to the earlier cold.

Isabella didn’t seem to notice. “So, what’s your name?”

Marcelyn Marie Maddox. “Marcelyn. It’s, uh, good to meet you, Izzy.” D’oh. “Isabella.”

“You don’t need to worry about that, really.” Isabella took a few steps back to lean against the door to 526. “I don’t mind, much. After all, I’m still me, aren’t I?” Different strokes for different folks, Marcelyn had to guess. “And that’s all I really need to be.”

“Heh, yeah, I guess. I dunno, names always kind of” Marcelyn scratched the back of her neck. “kinda seemed important to me, you know? Like...it’s you.”

“That’s what my wife says. Then again, Ripley doesn’t really have the same sort of shortcuts Isabella does, so perhaps that’s why.” Isabella stood back up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe I’m about to fall over.”

And thus, Isabella left, leaving Marcelyn alone inside her new hallway. She stood there for a bit, before heading back in.

The cold greeted her.

There wasn’t much daylight left, at least from what Marcelyn could see looking out the window. If she wanted to start unpacking everything from her car, she’d have to either pack it in early or go through the night, a prospect she didn’t really savor. It was cold enough in the daytime already, in any case, and Leah promised she’d help her tomorrow, after work. Better to just stick with necessities.

If she’d have known she’d buy an apartment this quick, Marcelyn would have brought her toiletries and laptop up to the room proper. But she didn’t, and thus, had to fetch them from her car, currently parked in the garage across the street.

It felt weird, locking the door to an apartment, her apartment, for the first time since Junior Year at Dayne. Absurd, maybe; Marcelyn almost felt like laughing, if she wasn’t screaming on the inside. She was alone, finally, after so long, and yet what should she make of it? How and what did this change in her life?

She almost felt homesick, as she stepped through the halls. As if home didn’t make her sick enough. ~Family is weird. You can choose friends instead.~ She didn’t know who said that. Was it her old college counsellor? A former partner? Who knew.

The elevator was empty when she stepped on, and empty when she stepped off. There were a few people in the lobby who she tried not to look at as she headed out.

At least she didn’t have to run, now. There were a lot of things she had to do, back home, and she didn’t have to do those now, either. It almost felt freeing, being a complete coward. You didn’t have anyone else to disappoint but yourself.

...herself and Leah. Maybe her boss, if they actually cared enough.

The street her apartment was located on wasn’t all that photogenic, Marcelyn thought as she headed out, which meant she’d need to travel for general tourist shots. She passed a bookstore, just being closed up by a clean-shaven, long-haired man wearing a t-shirt for what was either a band she didn't quite recognize or some illegible syndicalist slogan. Further on, she passed some boarded up storefront, markings of what used to be opening hours barely visible on the glass. At the end of the sidewalk was a metro station, one she’d probably need to start taking at some point, given how expensive taxis have gotten. She’d cross that particular bridge when she’d come to it.

The street the garage sat on hadn’t been completely cleared of the typical early winter slush, which meant Marcelyn had to step carefully as she made her way in. She gave up on that two wet socks later. She hated how clumsy she was.

Her car, that beaten-up old black hatchback of a model she hadn’t bothered learning until she needed to update her insurance, had served her well since her auntie gave it to her back when she got her license. She never expected she’d need the compartment space, sure, but then again she’d never expected to switch from pre med to photography.

The important stuff was kept in the passenger seat. Toiletries, her laptop, her camera, a few chargers, some granola bars she brought for the drive over, mostly eaten, and Sir Cuddles MBE, her stuffed bunny. Everything else could wait to be put away until tomorrow.

By the time she made it back to the apartments, the sun had already begun to set. December did that, especially up north. She was lucky the whole block hadn’t been snowed in.

Her first action upon coming into the apartments was to dump everything onto the kitchenette counter, peel off her worn fur boots and dirtied black socks (Jason liked when she wore those socks, she’d thought with a brief tinge of disappointment), and flopped down once more on the couch. Unpacking could wait for a bit.

Marcelyn Marie Maddox napped for a bit, and dreamt of being chased naked through a deserted, cold beach, hunted by large wolves made of chalk.


End file.
